CYBER NEEDS TO DO THE MATH

Focusing on cybersecurity and code writing education for the right reasons

In 2023, the Unites States government announced intentions to resource cybersecurity education for kindergarten through 12^th grade. For the cybersecurity community, this was a welcome initiative to highlight cybersecurity’s importance. Cybersecurity is necessary in the digital economy whether it be users who practice good cyber hygiene to secure their accounts and devices or protect themselves from sharing their private information with every Internet troll to businesses who must segment networks and applications and compartmentalize data and information to limit its attack surface. While cybersecurity isn’t the essence of most companies, it is a vital business enabler.

Still, some of the reasons government officials stated when rolling out the funding and grants program give some cause for concern of where the US primary and secondary priorities lie and where it is heading. Or, maybe the officials just needed to come up with some catchy phrases to justify the actions. Truly, this initiative is a good thing but, as the saying goes, let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water.

The first incident occurred in May 2023 at a defense cyber related conference when a senior Department of Defense official noted, “The US public education system was developed in the 1950s to produce more and better nuclear engineers than the Soviet Union.” He added, “We need less nuclear engineers and more cyber.”

Sort of.

The public education system this author experienced was built to develop more engineers and mathematicians period. Whether a student became a nuclear engineer, civil engineer, thermodynamic engine developer, cryptologist, or a math professor, any of them were the desired outcome. Afterall, industry and manufacturing were still a large part of the US economy and maintaining and improving infrastructure is a continual must for any developed economy.

Ok, minor disagreement. Let’s carry on.

Around the late summer of 2023, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, aka CISA, sent a representative to speak on a popular cyber security podcast where the CISA official stated, “Ya know, we had our three Rs (reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic) in school. We’ve outgrown this and we need citizens with more code writing skills and cybersecurity skills.”

Um, deliberate pause for great concern, no and maybe.

Educators experience pressures unknown to many non-educators. Two prominent pressures come to mind: the ability to balance educating against training, and the ability to add curriculum to what is often a zero-sum effort.

Education is to teach students how to think through the unknown. It provides a foundation of experiences for a student to apply knowledge and develop critical thinking to solve a variety of problems. For example, a student who studies math through calculus can apply those skills to solve the gravitational pull on an object in motion in Physics class. If one doesn’t understand Calculus, Physics loses some meaning.

By comparison, training teaches students how to complete a specific task. Trade schools that teach students how to fix a leaky pipe are an example of training. Though, plumbers have to develop critical thinking skills when they come across a fixture that has an iron pipe foundation connecting to a copper compression pipe. So, the education and training lines aren’t distinct.

Managing curriculum is another balancing act. Most programs have a foundation or core curriculum that every student must receive and another group of electives for the student to explore interests. Unless a school board adds minutes and thus potential support salary time to the school day, any curriculum that adds a new topic must remove something from another course or perhaps an entire course to make way for instruction.

Do the U.S. schools truly intend to teach less reading, writing, and arithmetic?

Perhaps nothing makes a better point about these balancing acts than a popular social meme and alleged Russian propaganda (see Fig 1) with the Archie Bunkeresque old man in the chair ranting about why U.S.  students even learn Algebra 2. Why not learn how to choose a career, balance a checkbook, learn to do taxes, yada-yada-yada?

Figure 1. Algebra 2 meme

First of all, Archie, many of these topics are taught in either a mandatory or elective personal finances class. Tax laws change perpetually, so do students need to know beyond how to complete a 1040 EZ to get started? Maybe Congress should write simpler tax laws.

Second, even if schools were teaching the personal finances course and dropped Algebra 2, it doesn’t create enough space to teach the rest of the topics. In other words, parents and school boards must decide what students need to learn.

Lastly and most importantly, students learn Algebra 2 for two important reasons. One, they develop critical thinking by solving different sorts of math problems. Two, those who excel and demonstrate aptitude become the engineers and mathematicians who make the world a better place. Physics and math made the business world go ‘round in the prior millennium.

No matter how much new technology the world creates, it is all predicated upon math and physics. Every computer part whether it be a chip, hard drive, screen, or case requires an engineer to design it to meet weight, heat, and pressure resistance specifications.

The artificial intelligence that may assist the same computer design engineers in the future will be designed upon algorithms. Algorithms are sophisticated math problem.

The most promising cybersecurity solutions like blockchain encryption are designed with algorithms – another math problem.

Same goes for the blockchain derivative cryptocurrency. Another algorithm and another math problem.

Quantum computing and encryption? Same. Very complex math problems.

Even though data may be the new oil, math mines the data, manufactures data into consumable information, and protects data in motion and at rest.

Indeed, the U.S.  cannot afford to reduce teaching arithmetic and higher math courses because it needs mathematicians for developing so many technologies including promising computing and encryption. If the U.S. cannot afford to rely on chip imports so it can compete in the future, it cannot afford on importing math expertise in ad infinitum either. Another competitor may make it more attractive for mathematicians to work elsewhere.

Parents, educators, and school boards should identify what is the minimum acceptable math level which might make room for more cybersecurity and code writing classes. Plus, educators can use AI to better identify who has the aptitude to keep going and assist those students in pursuing such learning. They are probably already doing this.

Yet, this article hasn’t even touched upon the societal impacts of not being able to communicate through reading comprehension and writing skills. Just because AI can rapidly download and read the emails en masse to write a response doesn’t mean the human proofreader can understand it or ensure it is coherent. A code writer needs to understand code syntax but may struggle to collaborate with other humans if the code writer cannot understand the spoken and written language syntax.

To be sure, this article acknowledges cybersecurity and code writing are important skills for the future U.S. work force. The dedicated grant funds truly are a needed step forward in developing more responsible users and businesses operating in virtual environments. Primary and secondary educators will have an important role in developing the future work force. Parents and school boards will need to actively contribute to the proper balance of expected education and training as well as the adequate proficiencies of reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Meanwhile, the cybersecurity community might consider its relationship to the software code writing community and how cybersecurity professionals can stop chasing code.

Let’s kick the can on that next time.